


The Horror of Our Love

by Shayvaalski



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AO3 Fundraiser Auction, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Explicit Sexual Content, Female Moriarty, Femlock, Genderfuck, Genderqueer Character, Genderswap, Oral Sex, Other, Porn With Plot, Prompt Fill, Sex Toys, Slurs, gendered slurs in particular, so watch out for that, sort of plot anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 09:03:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of non-chronological scenes between Sebastian Moran and Jade Moriarty, from meeting to parting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Horror of Our Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aj--la](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=aj--la).



Sebastian doesn’t hide the split lip; indeed they come home grinning wide enough to make it crack and bleed again, teeth stained reddish-pink with blood. Jade is still awake when the door opens, half changed out of her work clothes so that she sits in men’s trousers and a soft shirt the same color as Sebastian’s full bruised mouth, the fabric so thin it shows each line and point of her breasts. Seb’s hands find the shape of them as their lips finds the nape of Jade’s neck; and Jade sighs, exasperation and irritation, and says, “I’m _working,_ pet.” 

“Fuck that noise.” Sebastian’s voice is medium-high for a man, low for a woman, and Jade can hear the rumble of it against her bones. “Come on, Jade, come to bed.”

“You’ve been fighting. _Tedious,_ Sebastian. And careless.” Jade comes up out of the chair, neatly tucking a strand of hair still damp from being rinsed of gel behind her ear, and drops her eyes carelessly down the tallish figure Sebastian inevitably cuts, taking in evidence. They pull a face at her, pressing tongue to cut lip so that the blood wells and begins to drip again. 

“Stop that.” Jade’s voice is sharp and heavy with Dublin; Sebastian’s eyes flare the color of thunderclouds backlit by lightning but they stop pushing at the wound, allowing instead the blood to slip untouched down their chin. There is a tense breathless moment like a storm rising, and then Jade reaches up to knot her fingers into the unshaved side of Seb’s hair, dragging them down so she can lick the blood off with slow animalistic pleasure. 

Then she shoves Sebastian away, hard, dismissive. 

“Wash up,” she says. “And then leave me alone. I’m busy.”

*****

Jade takes the handgun out of Sebastian’s hand with the ease of someone who’s done it a half-dozen times, unbothered by the heat of the barrel against her fingertips. She clicks the safety on and slides it into the holster at Seb’s hip, chest pressing close to theirs for an instant before she straightens, head tipped to one side. Neither of them looks at the body. Neither of them wipes off the blood. The three remaining Somali contacts stare with their mouths open, the woman in her dirac and hijab, the men in their sarongs and neat jackets. The leader’s hand twitches towards her rifle and Jade sighs the sigh of a woman who has had _almost_ enough; the hand stills. 

“Now darling,” says Jade and she is all Moriarty, all professionalism and silk over the edge of a knife, “if you’ve quite finished being overdramatic about a _tiny_ mistake on our associates part...” Sebastian grunts, their eyes fixed on the taller of the men; he shifts and looks uneasy. “...then we can get started. I think they get the idea that _he_ is the wrong pronoun, Moran, don’t you?” Jade pats Seb’s arm, hand lingering just a bit too long—Sebastian can see the woman startle visibly, see the word _dyke_ begin to shape itself on the tall man’s mouth and as they go for their gun they wonder if Jade’s associates will ever, ever learn. It’s been three months. There are six people dead already. 

They wonder if this is going to get them fired even as they pull the trigger, and Sebastian doesn’t care. Jade sighs and crosses her arms. Waits patiently for the screaming to die down. When only the woman is standing (nine dead, now), the rifle leveled somewhere between the both of them, Jade says something flat and inarguable in a language Sebastian doesn’t understand—Arabic, maybe, even though all four of their contacts had spoken with barely a trace of an accent, as British as the bloody queen. There’s a long moment. Then the woman bends down, shoves the duffle bag towards Jade, and leaves at not quite a run. 

Sebastian raises their gun. Jade shakes her head and presses her fingertips to her mouth, and when the footsteps have died away she says, “Either you’re a godsend or more trouble than you’re _worth,_ pet.” Her eyes are too black, the iris subsumed by pupil. She steps so close Sebastian can feel the heat of her and their pulse spikes with wanting. She smells like blood and hot metal and pine. They curl a hand around her waist without thinking, mouth somehow at the curve of her neck; and she laughs. 

 

 *****

  


When J. Moriarty walks into the middle of a fight, the fight stops. It’s so much a part of her identity, the frozen, panting stillness surrounding her body, that she never gives it a second thought. Just walks through the participants to the bar or the girl or the door, unhurried. She’s barely twenty-five, and brawlers all over London and Dublin go still when Moriarty brushes by in her tailored men’s suits. If she thinks about her effect at all it’s to be distantly satisfied, faintly smug. 

This fight doesn’t stop. Jade makes a soft interested noise, and the smaller combatant looks at her with gentle panic, ducks another blow. The one doing most of the hitting doesn’t even appear to notice her, which is even more interesting. He—or maybe she, the figure is moving too fast but there’s a hint of a pelvis a full standard deviation away from the masculine mean—is grinning like a wild thing, teeth bared and eyes nearly shut. The swings aren’t wild. She—or he, the shoulders are pleasingly broad—isn’t drunk. Or high. Or desperate. 

But they _are_ angry. Jade watches for another moment, her head on one side, intrigued by how the anger doesn’t make tall blond and indeterminable clumsy or out of control; instead the rage in every muscle is steered by someone who clearly knows how, directed and carefully channeled.

 This is something Moriarty can use. 

The fight is bare-knuckle, so Jade pulls a knife and ducks into the middle. Within ten seconds, the smaller one is on the ground cursing, hands braced around his thigh, where Jade has driven the blade deep. The tall one is stepping back, barely a mark on a face more masculine than not, a scar over the bridge of a strong, delicate nose. Jade brushes off her hands, needlessly, and takes a long slow look at them. 

The first half of the look is enough to tell her _soldier, mid-size family, old money, rifleman. Sniper._ The second half hesitates over their mouth, the shape of their ribcage and wrists, the angle of thigh into body. It takes perhaps three seconds to come to a sensible conclusion, and before they say in a voice that is rich and rough without being terribly low, “Like what you see?” Jade has already decided that she does. 

“What pronouns?” she asks, crisply. The blond fighter blinks, and leans against a nearby chair. There’s a long pause. 

“Singular they.” Another silence. “You?”

“Male when I’m working.” Jade puts her head on the other side, eyes dark and wide. “We’ll discuss other options at a later date.” She puts out a hand. “J. Moriarty.” 

They take it, and oh, but Jade likes the heat of their skin, the callouses and scars. Gray-green eyes look her over, slowly (they recognize the name, of course they do) and with a hint of lazy, interested pleasure. “Sebastian Moran,” they say, and drop her hand an instant later than they really should.

Five days later, Sebastian moves in. Good employees are hard to find, says Jade as they pack suitcases under her eyes; no reason to waste time. Seb says nothing, just glances at her with something that’s almost a grin, and clicks the gun case shut. 

 

***** 

 

The flat is a three-bedroom one, roomy and full of sunshine (Seb, when they see it the first time, laughs out loud to see Jade standing in the foyer in her dark coat, Jade who belongs to dusk, not to morning sun streaming in through bay windows), with a big comfortable kitchen that Sebastian almost instantly starts reorganizing. Jade settles herself to watch once she’s changed, bare feet hooked over the bar of her stool. 

“Am I getting a cook out of this as well?” she asks after a little while, tracing intricate patterns on the countertop. There’s a faint dry amusement in her voice. “I should warn you, pet, I don’t eat much.”

Seb flicks her a look over their shoulder, then leans up to hang a saucepan on hooks that have clearly never been used. “I do.” A pause. “And you look like you could use a little bit of feeding up, boss.”

_Boss._ The word flickers between them; Jade sits up a little straighter, the taste and shape of it on her lips. Sebastian draws a finger down the edge of a cabinet. The set of their shoulders changes almost imperceptibly, canting towards Jade. She hums, long and low and pleased, and flattens her hand on the table. The motion pulls at Seb, inexorable, until they’re facing each other, gray-green eyes meeting black. 

“Tell me,” murmurs Jade, resting her fingers lightly against her collarbone so that Seb’s gaze is drawn to the line of it, “what _other_ skills haven’t you told me about?”

“That’d be showing my hand, wouldn’t it?” They run their tongue over their teeth, almost smiling. Jade takes her time looking Sebastian over, confident now that they’re both on the same page, and Seb stands quietly under her eyes. Like a horse in harness. Jade reaches out and slides her fingers beneath Sebastian’s chin, turning their head from side to side. They let her, with only the slightest patient shift of weight. 

“Handsome thing, aren’t you?” asks Jade, meditative, and strokes her forefinger along the line of their jaw. Her thumb brushes Sebastian’s lower lip, just barely, and they take in a soft shallow breath. Their eyes sag shut for the space of that breath, and Jade laughs, repeats the motion until Sebastian is leaning into her hand. Jade’s palm and fingers are very soft, the nails manicured but sharp. It’s a good feeling, thinks Seb absently; the hint of threat under the smoothness. They lift their own hand to curl around Jade’s wrist, not to pull her away but to keep her there. 

“I take it you’re interested, pet.” Jade taps Sebastian’s cheek, not quite a slap. Seb drags their eyes down the woman’s thin body, lazily, starting from narrow collarbones all the way down to slim hips and thighs, and then looks back up into Jade’s face. 

“Course, boss,” they say, like it should be obvious, and dare to stroke their thumb down the tendons of Jade’s wrist. Jade nearly _purrs._ Sebastian laughs, a low dark chuckle, and takes two steps forward until their bodies are pressed together. They skim their fingers down their new employer’s back, and then around to her hips, pressing their thumbs into the hollows of Jade’s pelvis. 

“So,” murmurs Jade after a moment of Sebastian’s square hands roaming idly over her body, “before we get _started_ , handsome, we’d best get a little terminology—straight, if you’ll forgive the pun.” And she drops a hand down, ribs waist thigh, until she’s cupping Sebastian between their legs, so lightly that her palm only makes contact with the fabric of their trousers. “What shall I call you, Sebby darling? Or are you one of the ones who avoids words in favor of physicality?” Jade grins, and Sebastian can see the matched glint of savagery and desire.

“Cock,” Seb says, taking pleasure in the way both flicker higher in her eyes. “Cock and cunt.” They tip their hips just the slightest bit, pressing down against Jade’s fingers, and they can feel themselves getting hard. “And you can call ‘em my tits or my chest, doesn’t matter to me.” Sebastian half-lids their eyes, takes another chance, and says, “Long’s you put your mouth on ‘em, boss.”

“I think I can manage _that.”_ Jade leans forward and licks a line up Sebastian’s neck, starting from the hollow of their throat. Seb tips their chin back to give her room, enjoying the shocking heat of her mouth. She’s almost clinically precise, tracing the line of jugular up and carotid down, until she’s at the collar of Sebastian’s shirt. 

“Off,” she says, perfunctory, and Seb strips without question. Jade takes a moment to look them over without any sort of hurry, one foot tapping out a noiseless rhythm against the warm wood floor; breasts that almost aren’t there, old tigerish scars over the definition of chest and abdomen, the muscled vee of their hips.

“Turn,” murmurs Jade, and Sebastian turns on their heel until they’re facing her again. Her mouth is curled up into a smile, and she reaches out, hooks her fingers into Seb’s waistband, and tugs. Hard. Not so hard that she’d move Seb even an inch if they didn’t want her to—but they do want her to, so in a matter of seconds the two of them are pressed closely together. Jade makes a small pleased sound, and ducks her head to nip at Sebastian’s chest. They slide their hands over her hips appreciatively as she mouthes her way downwards; the movement of Jade’s lips and teeth against their nipple gives Seb _high_ fucking hopes for the rest of the evening. 

Jade drops one hand and pulls at Sebastian’s thigh until she can insinuate it between her legs, settling herself against them. Even through her loose trousers, and theirs, they can feel her heat. Seb slides their hands down until they’re cupping Jade’s arse, holding her there. Pressing her down just the least little bit. She nearly fucking purrs. 

“I like a touch of _initiative,_ darling,” Jade says, and then she grinds down, eyes half-shut. Sebastian edges both of them backwards until their body meets the wall and they can brace. The woman giggles, high and shimmering, up at the edge of madness, and rolls her hips; if there’s not a damp spot on Seb’s trousers now, there will be soon. They’re alright with that. 

By the time Sebastian starts finding it difficult to keep steady, Jade is panting and wild-eyed, grinning so wide nearly all her teeth show, jaw a little dropped. Her left hand has been down Seb’s boxers for some time now, while the right stays braced against their hip. She never quite commits to touching them and it is going to drive Sebastian _crazy,_ this brush and flick of fingers against their cock. 

“Come _on,”_ Seb almost snarls, and twists their hips so that Jade’s hand gets shoved up against their cunt, fingers curling automatically, and _that’s_ more fucking like it. 

“Not yet,” hisses Jade, and pulls away; but she’s smirking. “Don’t rush me, angel, I’m enjoying myself.” 

A touch of initiative, she’d said, and Sebastian grins the way the tiger had, prowling around the base of a heavy-leafed tree as the goat bawled its terror into the Indian night. They grip Jade’s hips almost hard enough to bruise, and are rewarded by her pressing herself wet and hot against Sebastian’s leg. She makes a small considering noise, one eyebrow lifted. 

“Well,” she drawls, long and slow and almost American, and Seb thinks of an Idaho farmgirl turned soldier from ten years ago, “maybe I can tolerate a little rushing. Just this once. Since you’re turning out so terribly _good.”_

And she—somehow—gets her fingers around Sebastian’s cock and tugs, rolling the modest length of it between thumb and forefinger; and Seb sags and groans into her shoulder. 

“Hello,” murmurs Jade, calm and collected even though they can feel the sweat gathering on her lower back, and begins to stroke as best she can in the confines of Sebastian’s boxers. They tilt their head back against the wall, watching her through their eyelashes, and then Jade purrs, “Whatever would you do if I sucked it?” and drops to her knees and the breath goes right out of Seb’s lungs.

“Jesus Christ,” they manage, scrabbling at her hair. Jade giggles, and jerks their boxers off with something like violence that sends all _sorts_ of ideas straight to Sebastian’s groin because Jaysus fuck look at the glint in her eyes. The strain and twist of her neck as she looks up. 

“Do try not to fall down, pet,” she says, her mouth centimeters from Sebastian’s cock, which is so hard it aches, and they laugh, rough. 

“Taking you with me if I do.” 

“Then don’t.” The words come out sharp as knives and the two of them watch each other for a heartbeat. Then Jade chuckles to herself, shakes her head, and says, “But I’m sure you’ll be _fine._ Now hush.”

Her mouth is as hot as her cunt. Sebastian closes their eyes. It has been a _long_ time since they had anyone drop like this, knees cracking against the floor without regard for whether they might bruise or bloody. Jade should look ridiculous, legs a little splayed to get to the correct height, steadying herself with one delicate hand wrapped around Seb’s calf, neck craned at an awkward angle—but she doesn’t. She looks perfectly composed and perfectly at home. 

Not to mention fucking smug. 

Jade tongues up Sebastian’s cock like she’s had an entire lifetime’s worth of practice. It’s a slow motion, almost lazy, but she has the pressure just-bloody-right, a degree short of too-much, a degree past not-enough. By the time she pulls it into her mouth and sucks, Seb is loose in every muscle and using the wall to hold themself up. Jade hums and they twitch—their _cock_ twitches, which is a new sensation, and Sebastian mentally ranks their new employer above every other partner. And a good thing too, since the contract Jade had them sign meant this wasn’t a short-term deal—

Jade nips at Seb, very, very lightly, teeth running down the length of their cock, and they stop thinking about contracts and signatures and start thinking about how _close_ they suddenly are, the way they’re starting to pulse against Jade’s tongue. She makes another noise, this one less of a hum and more of a growl, and works a finger—two fingers, _fuck,_ and the half-unfamiliar strain matters less than the way Jade is crooking her first knuckles—into Seb’s cunt. 

“You sweet little thing,” gasps out Sebastian, and strokes her hair. Jade squeezes their calf, nails digging in, and then Seb isn’t in much of a position to notice anything because they are coming in a shuddering rush, head thrown back and mouth open. 

“There,” murmurs Jade, and Sebastian can feel the vibration of the words against their cock as they gasp for breath. “There, pet. And don’t you taste sweet?”

 

***** 

 

The night before it happens Jade fucks herself on Sebastian’s cock, the one they spent far too much money on just to hear Jade laugh high and shimmering, and watch her palm the veined shaft with lewd appreciation. Even on an ordinary night—if there’s such a thing with Moriarty—Jade fucks like she’s trying to break herself to pieces, one hand on her clit, the other at the hollow of Sebastian’s throat, not quite threat, not quite promise. 

But this is different. Even in the moment Seb knows it’s different, the bowed-neck intensity of Jade somehow even more urgent than usual, the ragged gasps harsher, the twist of her hips more brutal. They’re both sore afterward, and the pleased set of Jade’s mouth holds as much grimness as satiety—but then Jade has black moods sometimes, and even if fucking has eased them before Seb knows better than any man living that no trick works forever with Moriarty. 

They don’t worry overmuch, even though they know the next day is going to bring Jade into close contact with That Bitch and her pet Army doctor; if anything Sebastian is pleased that tomorrow will remove Holmes from their life and Jade’s. She’s a fucking pain in the arse and too bloody dangerous to leave alive, and if Seb draws any conclusion from the way Jade groans as she comes, nails raking down their chest, it’s that she’s working out her tension in a productive way. Unlike usual, the sick little fuck, and thank Christ; Sebastian is mortally tired of cleaning blood off their suit. 

They don’t worry overmuch, that is, until the gun—the one Jade wasn’t supposed to have—goes off. 

**Author's Note:**

> I had fun with this, even if it took me fucking forever. 
> 
> AJ requested a genderqueer Sebastian ("...born physically a woman... they get by with a men's tank top or a sports bra, at the most. [..] Seb has short, messy, dark blond hair with a side shaved off. Tall, lean, a bit athletic, and definitely towers over Jade") and a female Jim ("dresses as a man--binder, suit, gels back her shortish hair--but is feminine, so to speak, when she isn't working") and angst. And sex. And let me get away without really doing a plot so cheers for that!


End file.
